


now i'm just numb (i don't feel a thing for you)

by jessewrites, orphan_account



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Suicide mention, alcohol and drug abuse mention, blood mention, punk cop - Freeform, soccer cop - Freeform, soccer punk, suicide TW, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-09 23:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3268070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessewrites/pseuds/jessewrites, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>you’re a thousand deaths in and you don’t know how you got here, don’t remember the first time you realized you had been stuck in this world, don’t remember when “you” became “us” and when you began to blur into them. and it makes sense, doesn’t it? a lifetime’s worth of days, weeks, months spent together and you’re turning into them, erasing the differences brought on by nurture. </p><p>first you think you’re high. then you think you’re dreaming. then you think you’re in hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	now i'm just numb (i don't feel a thing for you)

 

1\. you’re a thousand deaths in and you don’t know how you got here, don’t remember the first time you realized you had been stuck in this world, don’t remember when “you” became “us” and when you began to blur into them. and it makes sense, doesn’t it? a lifetime’s worth of days, weeks, months spent together and you’re turning into them, erasing the differences brought on by nurture.

(it takes a while for you to notice anything- first you think you’re high.then you think you’re dreaming. then you think you’re in hell. you realize what’s going on and the first thing you do is find beth. it’s always beth, at first. you think that if you hold on tight enough you won’t have to start over. it’s only once you realize she’s as shattered as you are do you begin to go to alison)

2\. you die more now. and you die in their ways instead of your own- no gun to the head but the train lights rushing up to meet you or the burn of pills and alcohol sizzling down your throat. you want them to be happy. you want it to be over.

you get off the the train and you watch [beth? alison? yourself?] her step off the platform. at this point you’ve stopped cringing.

you kiss her for the first, second, third time [at this point you don’t remember the first. you don’t know how many times you’ve lived this], and this is the first time her breath smells like alcohol.

this is the first time you realize something’s gone wrong.

your name is sarah manning and you are Forgetting.

_you wake up the next morning in another woman’s (women’s?) bed. but maybe not- syou can still smell alcohol and gunpowder, cherries and smoke._

_alison and beth died last week._

3\. you step off of a train and watch a woman just like you kill herself. this is the first. you won’t remember it.

4\. you watch alison and beth and alisonandbeth until it all becomes one. you die for her (for them) each time, guns and pills and crashes and pills again, and it doesn’t even hurt by now.

you try to stop her, each time. each time, you fail.

you follow in her footsteps.

you two are explosive. sparks from words from fists from the air in between you and there is wine on the floor.

she’s drinking from the same bottle as last time, wine red as the blood you see coming, the blood from her head the blood from your head the blood on your hands the things you will both do to each other and you can’t watch it anymore-

for the first time, you take a drink too.

_you don't know what you are doing when you bang on alison’s door. you are desperate, you are hungry, you are out of options. you don't expect to be pulled in , shoved against a wall, and kissed until you cant breathe._

5\. she is crying, a broken glass in her hand. you raise your hand and she flinches, and you wonder if you’ve done this before. you let your fist fall to your side.

the next day she’s gone (again), this time using the broken glass. it’s your fault, this time. you shocked her into shattering it and now your grief spills from her wrists and you never saw her body but you know.

you go, this time, with beth.

it’s quick and it’s almost like a high and it feels something like closure.

6\. it’s usually beth first. her death is your catalyst, the first piece of some sort of cosmic puzzle. sometimes, though, one in every ten, twenty [repeats? lives?] chances it’s alison. pills or wine or “i can’t do this anymore” and you and beth are left. you kiss each other like the end of the world, and you both pretend you’re kissing her.

rarer, still, it’s you. those are the only times, you think, that alison is ever happy.

_the train station becomes your escape plan. you die there 5, 10 times in a row, link hands with beth and walk to the light with her, hoping that maybe this time you both get to stay out of the game._

_every time you do it you feel guilt rising up the back of your throat just before it gets torn to shreds. alison deserves to be here._

_next time, you push her out of the way and walk into the light alone._

7\. you are war and you are famine and you are death. you never wait long enough for pestilence to come- you know that there is blood in their lungs but you never give it the chance to rise up, never let beth and alison die by any hand but their own. you might be clones, but they still have choice, or the illusion of it. you’ve given up on the thought that anybody else is going through this but you. if they are, you don’t want to know.

blood rattles in your breaths and bullets in your bones. you are the harbinger of chaos, the beginning of the end, and you keep going back. you do not have to meet alison hendrix, beth childs, but you do. you kiss and you tell and you never look back.

you are a force,a live wire alive wire alive alive _alive_.

your name is sarah manning and you are Alive.

8\. the weight of all these half-lives are too much. you stretch and you feel your body shifting, expanding, stars and supernovas crackling like magic under your shifting bones. you’re approaching infinity in this tiny miserable existence of yours, and whoever decided that immortality was a blessing had never thought about this.

you love them, alison and beth, these blissful versions of you, these beautiful self-destructive copies sending themselves into death after death. you follow, and sometimes lead, and sometimes die before you even meet them, swirling into oblivion just long enough to reset. you fight and you fuck and you die and you die and you die in the span of a month, and you are all beautiful and temporary.

9\. the worst times are when you outlive them both- hollow without them to fill you up, their blood on your hands, pale skin and vomit or the dark blue imprint of a rope or a thousand other deaths you all wear like costumes. you wonder if they’re repeating this too. they can’t be that different, you feel their rage under their skin just as sharply as your own and the tears on your cheek and the way you kiss, bitter and open-mouthed like a confession. you can’t be the only one who keeps clawing her way back. they’re too much like you for that. the times when they die first make you think that you’re truly alone in this.

_alison and beth died last week. you knock on alison’s door until your knuckles are raw but she doesn’t answer and you know something is wrong. you dig through your bag to find the key she gave you (she’s only given you a key three times). shaking hands, a knot of dread, you open the door._

_you find them pale and still on the bathroom floor. together._

_more together than you ever were._

10\. beth childs tastes sweet like the barrel of a gun.when you lie next to her you can almost hear the click of the safety, you kiss her and you taste the grease and grime of hopelessness. but it’s sweet, still. you blame alison. it couldn’t have been you.

11\. sometimes you think you’ve made it. you wake up and she (alison or beth, or sometimes you can’t tell the difference) is laying next to you. maybe there’s a fresh scar on your thigh and maybe there’s stale alcohol on her lips but maybe, maybe you’re free.

a few days later you wake up on the goddamn train and the game starts again.

you can’t even end it yourself. in a way, it’s kind of funny.

12\. you still wonder why these women have let you into their lives and their bed. you share a face (and the fact that it’s a compelling argument in this situation should disgust you, but you’re in too deep for that to even register), but you don’t share their security. they might be frightened and desperate but you come from roots of running scared and they’ve come from good lives and good homes. they’ve never known danger until now. you guess that’s why they’ve never died before this. you hope that’s not the reason you’re here, as a guard or a leader. you can’t lead, all you can do is run and die and fall in and out of love like beth onto the tracks, alison into the bathtub after one, two, three too many.

13\. you run and you run until your legs give out and you can’t tell what’s blood and what’s wine. you end up exactly where you started - in a train station, watching elizabeth childs meticulously place her belongings on the platform.

this time you don’t even try to stop her.

you are tired. god, you are so tired.

you end up at alison’s doorstep, not shaking or sobbing like you have in the past. you do not go inside. you do not even look at alison’s body. you know she’s gone. it’s pills this time, you imagine, and you wonder if she thought of you. if she remembered. (if anyone else remembered.)

14\. you find yourself with shaking hands and a pistol in a back alley. you’re not even sure where you are. you don’t know how you got here. there are only a few things you know for sure-

15\. alison and beth are already gone. you knew it would end this way, somehow- you alone. you’re always alone in the end. and this is good- you never deserved their love and you’ve never deserved anyone. ordinary. destructive. you take comfort in this familiarity, but your last thoughts are of beth’s hands, alison’s lips, shaking pillars in a crumbling world.

this is it. this is the last time you die. there’s blood dripping from your temple and it’s different, for once- you’ve found separation in these final moments, can feel yourself drifting away in a way you never have before. maybe you do have a soul after all. if you do, it’s a damn persistent one but something’s finally given.

16\. your name is sarah manning and you are Dead.

 

**Author's Note:**

> "because they took our love and they filled it up  
> filled it up with novocaine and now i’m just numb  
> now i'm just numb  
> and don't mind me, i’m just a son of a gun  
> so don’t stop, don’t stop until your heart goes numb  
> now i'm just numb  
> i don’t feel a thing for you"
> 
> -fall out boy, "novocaine"


End file.
